1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to the field of solid waste and recyclables disposal. In particular, embodiments of the present invention relate to an automated tracking system that can be used to monitor a quantity of waste in a municipal solid waste transfer station environment.
2. Background Description
Waste management companies provide residential, commercial, and municipal waste management and recycling services for communities and organizations. Customers range from single residences to entire towns or companies. Municipalities may contract or otherwise engage a waste management service provider to handle their municipal solid waste (MSW). MSW is garbage, refuse, and other discarded materials that result from residential, commercial, industrial and/or community activities. MSW may also include mixed waste, such as unsorted waste from businesses or homes. MSW does not include, for example, hazardous waste, animal waste used as fertilizer, or sewage sludge.
Typically, a waste collector, which may be an entity employed by a local authority or a private firm to collect waste from residences, businesses and/or community bins, transports MSW to a transfer station, where the MSW is dumped and processed. A transfer station is an intermediate facility at which MSW is transferred from collection vehicles into larger trucks or rail cars, for transport to its final disposal destination—typically, a landfill. Mixed waste may be also sorted into constituent components at a transfer station to recover recyclable materials, such as wood, glass and/or metal.
To determine the weight of material deposited, the operation of a transfer station includes, for each collection vehicle, weighing the collection vehicle during a “scale-in” operation, the collection vehicle depositing its load at a designated dumping area, and weighing the collection vehicle again during a “scale-out” operation. During the scale-in and scale-out operations, the scale house operator manually enters into a computer information related to each transaction. Such information may include, for example, a vehicle identification (ID) number, a trailer ID number, a customer ID, a hauler ID, the generator of the waste (e.g., a business), the origin of the waste (e.g., a municipality), the waste type (e.g., MSW and/or recyclables), the quantity of special waste (e.g., number of tires, batteries, or propane tanks), and the calculated weight of the material to be dumped.
Once deposited at the designated dumping area, the waste is sorted into MSW and other recoverable materials, such as wood or metal. Subsequently, individual containers (transfer trailers) are loaded, for example, with MSW only, metal only, or wood only. Filled transfer trailers that contain MSW only are either transported to a landfill or temporarily placed in a staging area for later transport to a landfill. Likewise, any filled transfer trailers that contain only recoverable material, such as metal or wood, are either transported immediately to a recycling facility, or placed temporarily in a staging area for later transport to a recycling facility. Ideally, these containers would be completely full, but this is not necessary for proper operation of the system.
As each transfer trailer leaves the transfer station or is transported to the staging area within the MSW transfer station, a scale-out operation occurs to determine and track the waste unloaded by the transfer trailer. Again, this is a manual process of entering information into a computer. Manual tracking of waste within a MSW transfer station, for example, is performed by personnel using a computer keypad. Such manual operations are labor and time intensive, and thus inefficient and prone to error. We have discovered that there exists a need to automate the tracking of inbound waste, outbound waste, and internal movement of waste within a MSW transfer station.
State and local regulations govern the flow of material through each transfer station. As a result, each MSW transfer station has permit requirements that are based on state and local rules and/or regulations. One such regulation is a “clean floor” requirement, wherein the “floor” refers to a designated dumping area within the MSW transfer station. The clean floor requirement requires that the floor be free of all waste and recyclable materials at least once within a predetermined period of time, such as once every 24 or 48 hours. Consequently, there is a need to show that the volume of material dumped at the floor equals the volume of material removed from the floor within the given time period.
Clean floor log activities are manually entered into a computer. Thus, a clean floor log may not always be up to date or accurate. Consequently, due to delays that may be associated with manually entering data, the clean floor log may not always provide an indication that a clean floor event has occurred within the predetermined time cycle. Furthermore, the clean floor log must be provided, upon request, to a regulatory authority at any time. If the operator of a MSW transfer station is unable to satisfy the clean floor requirement of a regulatory authority, the operator is at risk of being fined or losing its operating permit. We have discovered that there exists a need to automate the monitoring of clean floor status in a way that facilitates the accurate reporting of the MSW clean floor status.
Another regulation that is based on state and local regulations pertains to the total elapsed time that an individual transfer trailer can remain within the MSW transfer station facility, from the time it begins to be filled with material. For example, once a transfer trailer begins to be filled, it must be transported from the MSW transfer station facility to it final destination within, for example, 24 or 48 hours. The tracking of each transfer trailer is also kept manually on a computer and is thus not always up to date and is subject, for example, to transcription errors. We have discovered that there is a need to automated the manner in which transfer trailers can be monitored. We have also discovered that there exists a need to automated reporting of the status of each transfer trailer and each trailer's movement.